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World Trade Center Progress

I found myself in lower Manhattan for the first time in a year this afternoon and took a couple of quick pictures on my phone of the WTC tower one and threw in two pictures of the original OWS "camp site". As I was visiting the office of the "vampire squid" I decided to get no closer then across the street from OWS....Just thought the pictures of both might be of interest.

Just realized that there are about 20 floors on the lower portion of the building that are not visible in either photo. Sorry, was in a rush. The pictures might not truly capture how massive the building is.

Much, but not certain how many floors taller, as there will be a massive antenna on the roof. Already towers over all of the other buildings as you see the sky line from NJ. The old towers used to be twice the height of the buildings that are next to it. This will be closer to 3x the height. The memorial park next to it is quite stunning. Only got to see it from across the street from the 12th floor of the GS building. The GS building is also the most impressive modern building that I have been in. It was built post 9/11 with tax advantaged redevelopment bonds that were used to encourage building in lower Manhattan. Wall street is no longer the home to all of the financial district as almost of "Wall Street" has moved up town over the last 20 years. GS is one of the few down town. The Wall Street area has undergone a stunning transformation into a residential area which is why the locals are complaining about the mess and noise of the OWS group. Interestingly enough as I was going into GS the OWS group had a protest going on. About 40-50 protest members, 2x in police and 3x tv crews.... Being NY life just goes on and people just walk by. The yellow cab driver dropping me off at the building was an immigrant and he just laughed and said "guess that is the 99%, but I have to go make a living". NY is a great city.

I was disappointed when I saw the selected design. I would have rather them go back with a twin tower design (there were several great concepts with twin towers), partly from a "you tear it down, we'll rebuild it" perspective.

The height of the new building is the same height as the previous One World Trade Center (the slightly taller of the two twins) at 1,368, but the antenna spire will rise to 1,776 feet, and obvious nod to the American revolution.

I am not a conspiracy guy. The question is why would the government want to take down this particular building? Are people saying that the U.S. Government took down towers I and II? Really what about the planes that flew into the buildings? A great mirage perpetrated on the people of the world? This is lunacy. I know families with out parents, I personally know people who had the unfortunate experience of being in the towers when they were hit, they have no doubt that planes hit the buildings, some even saw them hit. It was carnage, it was real and it was not a conspiracy born in our government. A great book to read is "102 Mintutes: The untold story of the fight to survive inside the Twin Towers". http://www.amazon.com/102-Minutes-Un.../dp/0805076824 is a moving book that explains the weakness of the building code when the towers were built.

The towers would not have collapsed if it was not for the fact that the initial impact blasted all of the fireproofing material off of the steel beams. Without this protective coating, which a normal building fire woul not have been able to compromise, the steel was laid bare to the intense heat of the burning jet fuel. With all of the weight on top of where the fires were burning and weaking the steel, it was only a matter of time before the steel beams failed, causing the buildings to pancake down upon themselves. I have watched all of the conspiracy theory movies and I just don't buy it. However, what I do find highly unusual is that at the Pentagon, no plane parts were found. The engines, or at least parts of the engines, can withstand the extremely high temperatures of the resulting fire so why no engine parts? Odd. Now don't get me going on the Kennedy assisination. THAT was a conspiracy!!

P.S. I knew three people that died on the jet that hit the North Tower so yes, they were hit by jets.

the initial impact blasted all of the fireproofing material off of the steel beams. Without this protective coating, which a normal building fire woul not have been able to compromise, the steel was laid bare to the intense heat of the burning jet fuel.

Actually Marty, that isn't the case, and that's really the issue, most of the JetA was burnt off on impact in the huge fireballs you saw, and besides both it and carbon based office furniture don't burn at more than 1400?. Steel doesn't weaken below 2400? even fully exposed to fire.

Ouray, I have no idea who did it or why, that is the stuff of conjecture and theory, but I am 100% certain that the total collapse of the three steel framed skyscrapers were not caused by two airliners or carbon based fires, especially when the two towers hit were built to withstand the imapct of a fully loaded and fueled 707, which is about the same size/weight as a 767.

Andrew Macpherson

Expert Z8 Inspections, with full support for both Z8 sale and purchases.

The Hotel Mandarin Oriental blazes
The most recent example of a spectacular skyscraper fire was the burning of the Hotel Mandarin Oriental starting on February 9, 2009. The nearly completed 520-foot-tall skyscraper in Beijing caught fire around 8:00 pm, was engulfed within 20 minutes, and burned for at least 3 hours until midnight. Despite the fact that the fire extended across all of the floors for a period of time and burned out of control for hours, no large portion of the structure collapsed.

It is tempting to draw parallels between this spectacle and the destruction of WTC 1, 2, and 7 because of the stark opposites: on 9/11/01, three skyscrapers were transformed into piles of rubble primarily as a consequence, supposedly, of fires -- fires spanning small fractions of each building; and on 2/09/09, a skyscraper remained intact after burning like a torch for hours. However such parallels may be limited by major structural differences between the buildings in the two cases -- one being that the Hotel Mandarin Oriental, designed by the famous Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, had a full-height interior atrium, and thus had the hollowness that the 9-11 Commission deceptively attempted to attribute to the Twin Towers. 10

Perhaps the relevance of the Mandarin fire to the events of 9/11/2001 is more symbolic than forensic. The Mandarin fire is examined more fully here.

I'm not up on all the theories on this or their soundness or logical fallacies. So, I'm neither for or against, but I do know that steel fully melts at around 2,400, but it weakens well below that, losing both compressive and tensile strength at about 1k. If these numbers are your basis for the belief, they're pretty inaccurate. Again, I'm not in to following this stuff. So, I haven't looked anything else - just commenting on your numbers.

I don't know what happened, but I am increasingly sure that there was much more to it than we all initially thought on that terrible day. What and why I don't know, but of one thing I am certain, those three buildings could not have collapsed into their own footprints at free fall speed unless something was removing the resistance to their collapse.

Initially I was very skeptical about all of this, but after hearing those who wanted a greater investigation mocked, turning the very word 'truth' into a slur and painting a 'truther' as an idiot, or an inbicile seemed like something from an Orwellian nightmare. That is what changed my mind, and started me looking deeper into those who call for the truth, and those who would ridicule them.

As I said, I have no idea who or why but I don't believe we know the facts yet, and as you can see, nor do many airline pilots, architects and engineers, professors, veterans and first responders.

I didn't say it melted at 1k. It melts (liquid) at 2.4k, but it looses compression (push) and tensile (pull) strength below 1k (varying slightly by alloy). So, even with a 1,400 degree fire, a steel structure could bend like a blade of grass under load. That's not to say that the arguments about localized vs. total failure don't hold water, and that's the one that typically draws my curiosity. However, if you just focus on steel is very pliable just below 1k.

The hot sections of jet engines aren't made from steel. Combustion chambers and compressors are forged from nickel alloys. I believe this is more for shearing force compared to steel than heat performance.

However, this is the kind of layman's logical fallacy that is often encouraged and spread as "evidence" by conspiracy theories, etc. An operating jet engine is vastly different than say a pool of burning fuel. The engine will run at temperatures well below an unconfined combustion like the one in the towers. 1) the fuel combustion in a jet engine is not in a static chamber, rather the airflow through the engine keeps it cooler, 2) the engines are designed to further route this airflow to specifically blanket and cool critical parts, and 3) jet fuel acts as a coolant to the engine prior to combustion just like gasoline does in a piston engine, resulting in exhaust gases well below 1k. So, with metal choice, a little thermodynamics, and a controlled system, the jet engine is not a viable analog for comparing to a burning building which uses entirely different metals and has no engineering for cooling.

Similarly, if you put a drum of gasoline under a piston combustion engine, it would melt the block, but by design and as a system, it functions within safe operating temperatures.

Again, I don't follow this stuff, and I'm not up on the facts, theories, or errors. I just wanted to make sure that you understood that while steel melts at ~2,400, it' basically a noodle above 1k. It's not an on/off switch. I have no problem with the office furniture bringing down the buildings, even though I tend to believe there'd be plenty of fuel surviving the initial crash. What I don't understand is the total collapse in a matter of seconds. That's not to say it couldn't happen, but it's something I just don't understand.

We can all agree on that! The book 102 minutes that I referenced earlier is about people and what they lived through. It does spend time on the construction of the towers. The methods were new, light weight and fast, but not nearly as robust as older buildings or the new ones taking their place at the site and that contributed to their collapse. I read it years ago and have kept it. To me it was a very moving book, which I never, ever say. Definitely worth the read.

but it weakens well below that, losing both compressive and tensile strength at about 1k.

Rifle, I know not enough to disagree on the steel, but there are a few things I am am sure off.

1.) The force of the impact spread the fuel out in a fast burning mist, it had no time to pool, the two fireballs you saw go up would have consumed about 90% of the fuel, maybe more.

2.) There were only office fires left burning, and the tape recording of the fire cheif said clearly in Tower One it was containable, then the explosions started. The explosions that day were covered by CNN, Fox News and every other station, I remember that absolutely. They were also covered in the Naudet (?) Brother documentary, all the firemaen spoke about them.

3.) Of all the large steel framed buildings around the world that have suffered major fires none have collapsed.

Andrew Macpherson

Expert Z8 Inspections, with full support for both Z8 sale and purchases.

Yeah, I'm with you that there are many things that don't add up when you begin to pick apart the tragedy, but videos like this are wrought with bad assumptions, logical fallacies, and deep selection bias, which doesn't help with their credibility. Again, much of the standard story doesn't add up to me, but videos like this are sensational and seem to have as much of an agenda as the motives for the attacks that they portray. Sadly, it's one of those "we'll probably never know for sure" tragedies as all the data and interviews will likely never come together in a way that can be properly analyzed.

I remember watching that day as the towers were burning thinking, if those things fall, they're going to go everywhere. The thing that always surprises me is the relatively neat collapse of all three buildings. However, I'm no expert, if the fires were hot enough to weaken the steel, and the structure of the building was such that it was vulnerable, maybe it would fall neatly as it did. It's beyond my knowledge either way, but my analytical mind is cautious of ingesting self-supporting arguments from any perspective when I can't consider the entirety of the data.

That's also the key for me. There seems to be a good density of credible people that have questions around the conclusions of the official review. I just hate they way those people are generally packaged into sensational videos.

Any way you look at it, it's a pretty sensationalist subject, and one that raises the blood on both sides, those who don't want it to be reivestigated (for whatever reason) and those who do because they suspect some form of foul play.

I can't get my head around the who or why, but I really do want to know for once and for all how three massive steel framed buildings collapsed into their own foot prints at freefall speed. This is an event that appears completely at odds with the damage they sustained. On the day, like you I was expecting that maybe the top of the buildings would buckle and topple into surrounding buildings, but not to disintegrate into dust from the basement allowing them to fall in the manner of a preplanned controlled demolition, and only two of them were hit by planes.

Andrew Macpherson

Expert Z8 Inspections, with full support for both Z8 sale and purchases.

I think it happened and I don't buy the conspiracies. Sorry. Next you'll tell us we never landed on the moon. If the govt was so good at conspiracies then they'd have planted WMD in Iraq. So to me, it really happened, its really a tragedy, it was an act of war. And yes I knew people who died; and I know their survivors. A sad sad sad day.

I was with you until I took some time to look, and now I believe that a deeper investigation is warranted. It is all too easy to write this off as a bunch of crack pots until you really take the time to see who the serious, worthy and obviously honest people are who are a part of this huge movement.

Andrew Macpherson

Expert Z8 Inspections, with full support for both Z8 sale and purchases.

Are you saying Al Queda is a bunch of "serious, worthy and obviously honest people"?! I cannot believe that. What am I missing?

I don't write them off as crazies. Rather I think they firmly believe they are the early part of a movement to change the world to bring us to a 1,000 year rule of their version of Islam and to achieve that they have to remove western civilization and in order to do that they have to eliminate the US. Then Europe. Then Israel. Those who are sympathetic to this ideology are building their arsenals.... Watch out for Iran and its nuclear weapons. Remember their stated reason for being, its in their constitution, is to remove western civilization from the map.

Life is very complicated. I think to say its crazies, or its a conspiracy, its too easy. To me they did it, they had objectives. They did achieve their immediate objective; but in the end I don't think they will achieve their long term primary objective.

My thought is that it happened. The motives and players are those that we know. No conspiracy. That being said, there are parts that just don't "logically" make sense to me, but on those areas of question I quickly concede that I'm no expert, as many of the events and reasons are complex and beyond the understanding of even trained experts who don't have all the data at their disposal.

It's easy for many of those sites to say no other buildings in history collapsed like these did (which is the one thing that always gets me), but there are also no other buildings in history that were destroyed under the same conditions (engineering, construction, contents, collision of aircraft and debris, location of fire in structure, weather, etc.), which greatly weakens the argument. Does it make sense to me, nope. Could it happen, absolutely.

I've yet to see a site with an alternative theory that doesn't use a pre decided conclusion to craft assumptions to build their argument and commit a dozen logical fallacies along the way. Nor do they ever take the effort to test their own argument for flaws. That's just not the way you construct an argument or produce analysis.

There do seem to be a number of experts that share my "some things don't add up" thoughts, but I've only ever seen them presented out of context in quote snippets. I've never seen a fully qualified group, including an experienced demolition team (most architects and engineers I know would have no comment on how to bring down a building) make statements after fully analyzing the data. It's always just conjecture based on video, photos, etc. There may be something concrete out there, but I've yet to see anything that's very credible.

So, even though I fully believe the Bush administration ran with the tragedy as a "gold mine" for their agenda and the wild goose chase for WMDs, I have to go with the Occam's Razor approach and assume that the 9/11 tragedy is what it is. Confusing, but the real thing.

Are you saying Al Queda is a bunch of "serious, worthy and obviously honest people"?! I cannot believe that. What am I missing?

Jerry, did you look at any of the videos or links I posted? Your reaction doesn't seem to logically follow the train of conversation here, so just to be clear, this is not a discussion about religion, war or Al Queda, it is simply about the nature of the destruction of the towers, and that is all.

The individuals I am talking about are the ones who are asking for a greater investigation into the collapse because there is overwhelming evidence that multiple explosive devices were used to complete the destruction. Personally I'm not interested in the (possible) motives of any country or religious group, all I'm interested in is the facts surrounding the impossible collapse of the three massive steel framed buildings that were brought down in a manner that was completely inconsistent with the damage they sustained.

If these people are correct then all that can be investigated at a later time, to me all this hinges on the use of explosives at grooud zero.

I did not intend to touch on raw nerves with the original posting, just thought it was interesting to finally see real progress after a decade. Clearly a hot topic with many emotions on all sides. This is a great forum and I hope that the initial thread does not create divisions among the participants. So, everyone take a moment and go look at their Z8 in the garage or better yet if you are in a warm environment go take it for a spin and at least for the moment all will be right in the world!

On a lighter note. In the second photo of the new tower a reflection can be scene on an existing building in the lower right hand portion of the tower. Can anyone identify this building? Two hints: 1) it held the distinction of being the tallest building in the world for 17 years, 2) It is amazing what nickels and dimes can do.

That must be the Woolworth Building, and for my part this is just an open debate, and not a rift of any kind. Such a momentous and terrible tragedy leaves many, many raw nerves, but without the ability to question and wonder we loose the very freedom we are sworn to protect.

Andrew Macpherson

Expert Z8 Inspections, with full support for both Z8 sale and purchases.

That's a pretty interesting video, and I'd be curious to actually see his findings, not just a video testimony that is heavily edited. Why can't we hear the questions from the interviewer? We don't know if they're leading, and there's not caucus or discussion on the findings by others. Is there a full, unedited version out there?

This is my problem with referencing stuff like this. It brings up some interesting facts, but its presentation leads to holes in the argument and follow-on discussion. It's just enough to rouse curiosity veiled in a rational, scientific approach, but there's no transparent presentation of methods, results, and concussions. It's just some expert talking head. That's just not helpful or moving anything forward. I'm sure you could line up just as many talking heads for the opposing view.

What I'd like to see is an unedited panel from this guy, the other one he references, and some standards labs going over the source of the material, how it was collected, the experiments, the methods, the resulting data, and then a discussion of the conclusions, causes, statistical significance, and viability of the published report and these results. Until we have that, this video has little worth as "evidence". You could never get a scientific paper published like this. Maybe this has happened. That's what I'd like to see. Real science and discussion.

I don't think anyone's up in arms here. That's what's great about this group. We can have these deep discussion, and we always stay professional. It's among friends. We agree, we disagree, and we go drive. I love being able to share here and wrestle around with this stuff.

Below is a portion of a transcript from a radio interview this Mark Basile guy did around the same topic. He actually discusses the source of the samples he examined. I'm not saying it's not representative or that these guys aren't on to something, but if your sample is collected a week after the event merely by someone who lived across the street, it subject to all kinds of error and tampering. Control over how samples are collected is critical in gathering data and building results and conclusions. Based on the transcript, it doesn't look like any of the "thermite" samples were actually taken from the towers at the time of the attack. Rather, they're days after from surrounding buildings and from a bridge in the river. I haven't read the entire transcript, and they many address this. This is pretty critical info and should be carried in the video as well, but no it's only "this guy is an expert, and this is what he found".

What percentage of this stuff was there? Are there any other possible sources? Welding in the area for repairs or rescue efforts? There are just as many questions about their findings, but they never go there.

Like my last comment half an hour ago, this is interesting data, but we need to know the whole story in how the samples were collected, the methods of analysis, and how conclusions are constructed before we just believe these videos. Cross examination is key in a scientific publishing, and all these conspiracy sites seem run rampant without any checks based on verifiable and reproducible scientific methods. They latch on to sound bites, photos, and snippets of data and wave the banner of "truth". The more I dig into these guys, the more I see errors and sensationalism.

Things still don't add up entirely for me with the tragedy, but the alternative opinions just keep shooting themselves in the foot under examination in to what they leave out of their claims.

Here's the radio interview. http://911blogger.com/node/20998
I only took the time to scan it, and after I saw the bit about the sample, I tuned out pretty quick. The hosts and interviewers, definitely have their concussions made before hand, and their questions are very leading. Let me know if I missed something that's helpful, but this Basile guy comes off as not being credible to me.

Mark Basile:
You know I probably have the report here somewhere, I'd have to dig it out, but you know, my guess, you know, this is just a guess, but basically people pretty much weren't allowed to go in there until at least about a week almost afterwards... For instance, the sample of dust that I've actually looked at came from an individual who lived pretty much across the street right from the main World Trade Center One or Two, I forget which one it was... and uhm...she was about a week, before she was allowed back in. So I would guess that, you know, the environmental firm probably went in some time, you know, shortly thereafter, whenever they were contracted, you know, it could have been days, could have been weeks, could have been months, I'm not really sure, I could.. uhm.. But you know the report is available publicly for anybody that wanted to go look it up, you know, I've just googled "RJ Lee" and "World Trade Center report" and I think you'd probably get some hits on it.

No I did not watch the videos. Just reading the text in the thread. Sorry if any feelings are burned. Not my intention at all. I agree we are a generally mature group that doesn't get into name calling etc.

My 2 cents are theres no way we will ever know everything about that day but Rifle basically sums up how I feel. Sure theres room to question- thats usually a good thing. But so far everything I've seen, which I admit can't be everything out there, reminds me of the crackpots saying we never landed on the moon.

Jerry, no worries, I was where you are a few years ago, then more and more I started getting shown these things, and I guess I'm now in the place where I feel that there is enough of a doubt to reopen the investigations. I tried to list sites, links and info as best as I remembered, but as this isn't something I'm involved in so it is a bit of a hap-hazard mix of things I could find. Since you neither watched the clips or followed the links it doesn't much matter anyhow! :-)

I honestly feel that the poeple calling for these investigations are airline pilots, architects, engineers, professors, people far more accomplished and learned than I. These are people it appears to me are of real worth, and not tin foil hat crackpots.

History will tell if the truth comes out, but I hope that the freedom we fight for and hold so dear is respected in bringing this into open, and there is a full scientific debate in an investigation of all of the facts. If it does not freedom will be the first victim of this terrible day.

Andrew Macpherson

Expert Z8 Inspections, with full support for both Z8 sale and purchases.

I hear you Andrew. Respectfully, the first victims were those who perished on 9/11. I do believe you are sincere in your belief on this. I think we've always had to balance freedom vs security and at times its ebbed and flowed.

Im not a huge fan of the Patriot Act. The above quote is a great one but you should stop to ask what is "liberty". Most of us use it interchangeably with "freedom". But what does that really mean? Are we free to shout "FIRE" in a crowded theater? NO. Why? It puts others lives at risk. Public safety tumps freedom or liberty in that instance. Are we free to drive out Z8s at 150MPH? NO. Why? It puts lives at risk.

And so forth. Before you make the criticism I think you should also consider that maybe some people might say liberty is being free of worrying about if their airplane will be blown up mid flight by a shoe bomber.

I would generally rather err on the side of individual rights and liberty; but we are at war here and when we are at war some things have to ebb and flow- not be eliminated- and I certainly think the Bush and now Obama administrations have taken the easier path that restricts our liberty perhaps too much. But then again I don't know all the specific threats we face every day.

Its not just the government that worries me. Have a look at what Google is doing- if it doesn't send a chill down your spine then you are not looking hard enough. They are assembling dossiers on everyone. If someone I am emailing has a G mail account, I usually request them to use another one.

Andrew, that video doesn't really surprise me very much but heres the thing- didn't someone run for office saying he'd be the most transparent President ever and in so doing so he implied he would "level" with the American people... so far what do we have? Yes, a President whose administration is just as secretive as the prior one whom it seems people love to vilify.

I just hope the American people get it right in 2012. We've had a few elections now where we've clearly gotten it wrong.

I'm with on all Jerry, except I really do worry that Dem Inc & Rep Inc are glued into the same business model, they have both become a huge part of the problem, and the very thing that defines them prevents them ever being able to work together to find a solution.

Add to that the absolute power held by the bankers who own the (NY) Fed, the Rockerfellers in particular, and you start to see how the real power in the land just uses the political polarity to set those who are conservative and those who are progressive against each other.

There are some great studies I've read about left brained & right brained people, and their natural urge to be progressive or conservative, so at their heart the two parties should reflect 'us' but when they are manipulated by 800 lobbiests per representitive there can be no real representation of the people of the nation.

I've really lost my belief in the current system, and until we have all money out of politics, and see it run free of lobbiests I don't think I'll find any credibility in it.

Andrew Macpherson

Expert Z8 Inspections, with full support for both Z8 sale and purchases.

Hard to argue with you; but in the end, I think the major problem in this country lies with us. Its the people. As a society we were sold a bill of goods that said we could get ever expanding services without an ever expanding bill. Now that illusion is beginning to be exposed as the canard it was and is. And hence you get things like Wisconsin and the OWS movement etc. In essence we're what GM was, and maybe still is? The parties, true, but thats part of a structural problem we have. It would come around if we would be willing to make meaningful sacrifice, but right now we are all in the "not in my backyard" / "everyone out for themselves" mindset. Until that chances, we're not going to get much change.

I did look at that link about the dust. I have the same concerns. The samples were gathered by just normal people, and there's no discussion of how they were protected from tampering, etc. I haven't looked over the analysis from the commissioned report or if and how it gathered any dust samples.

It is interesting that there seem to be several studies that have similar findings on the thematic reactions, but none of them seem to be based on samples that were gathered using proper controls. While this doesn't necessarily invalidate their findings, it should be disclosed along with the report as possible reasons to reduced the credibility. It's just standard to do so when doing a study, experiment, or what have you. You declare findings and methods used to reach them but also the potential problems with those findings. The conspiracy people just seem to grab a hold of the findings and wave truth without any discussion of the potential for error, tampering, or statistical correlation. For, me if that's their behavior, I just can't give credence to their "truth".

I do not know hardly anything about such metallurgy, but I do know that thematic reactions are present in exothermic welding which is used to fuse rails. With all the steel structures in that city, is it possible that there is just normal traces of such metals? I can't answer this, and the "truth" wavers never address any other alternatives or discuss the amount of materials found. Could these other applications produce the same compounds and alloys found? No clue.

That's my problem with this stuff. It could be THE absolute truth, but their methods are so scientifically dreadful by running with pre-drawn conclusions and finding facts to support those conclusions while ignoring any other possibility that they just come of looking they'll do anything to push their thoughts and agenda.

I am still left with the over riding impression that this is not a movement of nut jobs, or tinfoil hatters. The people I have linked to are serious people, the architects, engineers, pilots, etc, etc who are in truth far better educated than I, and know their worlds better than I ever could. The huge unity of those voices crying out really leads me believe that there should be a new, thorough and open investigation undertaken to see if they are onto something. Without a new investigation the idea of conspiracy and cover up just gains more momentum, and at time when people are trusting their government less and less that isn't a good thing.

Andrew Macpherson

Expert Z8 Inspections, with full support for both Z8 sale and purchases.

I haven't really seen any sort of unified "movement" per se, but I do believe that there are groups of well educated and trained people that are putting forth some good questions, just as we are in this discussion. For the most part, they're definitely not "nut jobs", but there are plenty of those too. Perhaps that's the problem the mix of the good and the bad, but even though the credible ones are potentially putting for good questions and research, the presentation of most that I have seen has been deeply flawed in one way or another, usually in selecting facts to support a conclusion, rather than the other way around.

After all, if we're going to go just on the credentials of the those presenting the data, should we not also just go on the credentials of those in power putting forth a different view? As I've said all along, there are some interesting questions in all of this. There are things to my mind that just don't add up, but I've yet to find any alternative theory that is iron clad. So, on that, I can't get caught up in whichever way some "expert" wants to blow the wind. I too hope some unified conclusive investigation could be done, but at this point, I'm just not holding out hope. Some of my questions will just have to be unanswered.

All the good stuff I've found recently came from the sites I linked to in post #15, but what I don't have are the original clips and documentaries I say that originally got me interested in this, as that was quite some time ago.

Overall my lasting impression is the total collapse of three massive steel framed buildings into their own footprints simply doesn't match the damage sustained, or the history of those kinds of structures, and that's where I'm currently stuck.

Andrew Macpherson

Expert Z8 Inspections, with full support for both Z8 sale and purchases.

Sorry for getting in here a little late, but I'm in agreement with Rifle and Jerry.
The forces at work here are enormous and hard for most of us to comprehend, i.e. in the buildings collapse. For example, when that one video asks how a collapsing building can "eject" beams and debris sideways during the collapse without an explosion is a hollow question presented for the sole purpose of supporting their argument. The bending, springing, and breaking action of the structure could almost certainly account for this type of action. Haven't you ever bent a piece of iron, steel, wood, etc., only to have a shard simply break off and shoot off in one direction or other? No explosion required. Try to imagine the enormity of these forces in this situation.

I would have to disagree with Andrew that all of the jet fuel was burned in the initial fireball. You have to remember a B-767 carries somewhere in the neighborhood of 24,000 gallons of jet fuel. Do you really believe that amount of fuel could be totally burned during the few seconds witnessed by the fireball? What you see there are the fumes (which always exists in the fuel tanks) and any fuel that was atomized into the air caused by the impact of the plane. These fumes and atomized fuel burn spectacularly accounting for the orange fireball, but TONS of the fuel would simply have dropped on the structure below due to the destruction of the fuel tanks during the impact. Each of these many thousands of gallons of jet fuel would become a huge fuel source for the fire within the structure. BTW - Jet fuel is a form of kerosene and is not excessively flammable in itself. You can actually extinguish a match in a puddle of jet fuel or kerosene - just don't hold the match above the puddle for any length of time. The fumes and atomized fuel droplets are very flammable under the right conditions.

I also believe you need to consider the "crucible" or "stovepipe" effect created within the structure as the fuel (jet and other) burned. It would be very similar to the blast furnace mentioned in the video where it is admitted that steel can be melted. The heat would be concentrated and directed upward by the structure of the building itself concentrating the heat as it develops. The top of the building remained intact so there was no place for the heat to escape causing very high temperatures inside the structure. When the video mentions the people in the building not reporting feeling that kind of heat, it must be pointed out those folks were BELOW the fire with many floors of insulating air between them and the fires. It's no wonder to me why they didn't report it.
One final short point, as Rifle alluded to, the "flame" in gas turbine engines doesn't actually come in direct contact with any of the alloy metals inside the engine or combustion chamber. The annular flame in the combustion chamber is "controlled" with a cushion of cooling air which is circulated around the combustion chamber to ensure the flame doesn't come in contact with any metals. Combustion chamber temperatures can range from 1000 degrees C to around 1400 degrees C but the flame itself is "contained".
I do think it's healthy for people to ask these pertinent questions and we would all be better for it if we could get straight, scientifically supported answers. These questions should be answered without the limitations and manipulation of conspiracy theories.
Just my 2 cents...

More than anything it is a special group of people that the Z8 has attracted.

I love that we can discuss anything, throw up ideas, and have them challanged because the one thing we all know is we just don't know everything. The truth is a very mecurical thing, it's never an absolute and its always changing and growing to take in the new as we learn and grow.

Maybe the Z8 is a car that the wise are attracted to, being a perfect practical classic, and that's why we have such great discussions here, because we are already a fairly wise bunch, and we want to achieve higher wisdom. Just a thought!

Andrew Macpherson

Expert Z8 Inspections, with full support for both Z8 sale and purchases.

You guys did had me a little worried! I've seen other boards get really ugly once in a while. I do think that the Z8 crow enjoys healthy intellectual debate. While most of us are successful experts in our fields, we are the type that seek out new and provocative perspectives... I wonder why?

I take that to be a rhetorical question. But it seems to me that if you want to be somewhat successful in this life, you have to realize you don't know it all, and if you are smart, when you're wrong, you'll shut up and admit it and then seek out knowledge.

So, you're saying smart, successful people buy Z8s? Yes, perhaps, but the car does seem to appeal to open mined individuals.... strongly opinionated too! (on the whole). Seems like an oxymoron, but it's not.

To really get things going, how about this amazing illustration from 1912 that was trying to warn Americans about the dangers of a national bank cloaked in a nicer name, since the first two national banks were such a total disaster. Of course the Money Trust became the Federal Reserve System, which is largely owned and operated by the Rockerfellers on behalf of many of the other 19th century banking barons.

So Goldman is actually Squid Jr.

Andrew Macpherson

Expert Z8 Inspections, with full support for both Z8 sale and purchases.